Thursday, June 30, 2005

I have been in a long running debate with friends today about the demise of Frank Farina as Australia’s soccer coach. I am a very big supporter of Australian soccer and have watched the serial blunders that have plagued our World Cup efforts since 1974 (not that I remember the 78 debacle!).

My position, if I can be so bold to state, is that the FFA should have sacked Farina 12 months ago and that to do so yesterday a mere 6 months from qualifying is a disaster. Having said that, I don’t believe Australia would have qualified in the end anyway if our very sorry performance at the Confederations Cup was any indicator.

I think Frank Farina should be remembered for bringing the game forward in this country and for being the first Australian coach to understand the plight of our overseas players. By using London as a base and a venue for International Friendlies, I think that legacy will be fondly remembered. Unfortunately whilst he was a good people manager and motivator, he was not a great technical coach and the fact that the team seems to have lost the plot in defence is the reason why he was not the man for the job and with Frank at the helm, we were never going to win qualification in a one off match in South America.

Instead, we will have a change. A change that has been incredibly badly managed and whilst I believe it is warranted, does not absolve the FFA from blame. Lowy et al should have bitten the bullet when the results against NZ and other lesser games did not go as planned. Poor results against Jamaica and South Africa 12 months or so ago should have been the writing on the wall.

We, as a soccer nation, were not embarrassed in attack and showed great glimpses of skill and talent in front of goal and we were harshly judged by referees. But we should have overcome that relatively minor adversity if the defence could hold firm. Instead, the defence was embarrassingly poor and amateurish.

A change was required, but only history will judge if the change has a positive or negative impact on qualification for Germany 2006. My view is that nobody should be buying tickets to Germany yet.

Overslept this morning and find myself on the later train (7:40am) because I was up until 1am playing a fumbbl tournament. I didn’t think I would, but I got to the final and hence had to play three games straight. Lost the final, in a cliffhanger 1-0 but you can read about my comprehensive first round win here.

But I tell you, its worth sleeping in today. It has been pouring torrential rain since 10 o’clock last night and is still bucketing down. The weather has been rainy this week, but today is the worst rain I have seen in a long time. You can tell how heavy it is and how long the ‘drought’ has been going on by the reaction of kids. The girls this morning were particularly amazed by how wet it was… I guess they have never seen rain like it ever!

So, my last couple of postings have been about habit and I am now on a foreign train with foreign commuters. I may have taken someone’s regular spot perhaps… hee hee.

I don’t have a lot to write because my brain is sleepy. A late night, coupled with snoozing the alarm too long means that my head is drowsy. I may just signoff here (at Emu Plains) and catch some zeds.

Yes faithful readers, the train was on time this morning. Despite the rain and the cold, the train driver got his arse out of bed on time today and made it to the Lithgow train yards in a time that allowed for prompt departure. Perhaps he only had 4 flagons last night instead of the usual 5.

I suppose I can’t begrudge the Fat Controller the kudos of being on time. Well done, it’s been a long time.

I did wax on lyrically yesterday about being creatures of habit yesterday and I suppose the Fat Controller is no exception…

I also talked about the fact that my “fellow commuters” are habitual as well… Not only do I greet the morning with the same two gentlemen each day, the same people are also on the carriage once I get on. For example every morning I sit on the left side of the carriage in the middle of the top deck. It is “my spot”. Two rows in front of me, but on the right hand side sits a man of about 45 years of age with an extremely stern demeanour. He wears a suit (as do I) but he refuses to hang his jacket on the hook provided. He sits in his jacket (which means it gets crushed) and he reads the paper (Sydney Morning Herald of course!) with a very crisp and perfunctory manner. Papers rustle, page turns and paper as whole is flicked and he commences reading. He makes reading the paper an art form. But he also gets up EVERY morning between Lapstone and Emu Plains and leaves all his belongings and goes downstairs to the vestibule. I can’t see him from here, but he can only be doing one of two things – taking a leak or getting a drink from the crusty water fountain. (He’s getting up now as I type this).

Anyway, I say we are creatures of habit, but habits are made to be broken. You see we have an intruder. This week, for whatever reason, a new person, a uni student type guy who wears a Volcom hat pulled over his eyes and has headphones on has been sitting in the Stern Man / Mystery Piss Takers seat. Somewhere up the line, Student Boy has been getting on the train and has taken Stern Mans seat. So what does Stern Man do? He has started sitting in MY SEAT! And he still doesn’t make use of the coat rack! My coat rack!

What this has done is that it has left the only remaining seat with a coat rack (only every second row has them if you aren’t familiar with State Rail Country Trains) for me to sit on and its on the right hand side directly across from my old left hand position. This means that I am using my laptop with the wall/window on my right hand side and it makes typing more difficult as I keep bumping the window sill and my coat (hanging on the rack) is close to my right hand. Being right handed and a solid two finger per hand plus thumb typist, this means I am a little bit squished for room.

So why didn’t Stern Man simply go back two rows and take the seat I am currently sitting in? Why has he moved to the left? Will Student Boy disappear after this week or is he a permanent member of the Last Carriage Club? Am I therefore doomed to RSI for sitting on the right hand side?

And finally it makes me think that perhaps when I started on this train that I perhaps may have taken someone else’s spot on the middle left and now that someone is sitting behind me mocking me and the fact that I have lost my (their old) seat.

Catching the same train every day at the same time and sitting in the same carriage means you see the same people every day. People are creatures of habit and I am no exception to this. Every morning, I will line up to get into the last carriage of the “7:10am” train at Glenbrook station with my fellow commuters. There are two other men, both in their 50’s at least who do the same as I. Last carriage, up the top deck, 7:10am. We lead exactly the same morning transport lives.

Now of course doing this 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year means that you become “friends” with these fellow commuters. By friends I mean you start out each morning in sullen silence. Then after 6 months you have worked up to a quick nod. 6 months after that you do the nod followed by a brisk “morning” call. Now this has been happening as per the timetable I described until one night last week, when coming home on a late train in the evening (the 8pm from Central to the mountains) I bump into one of my Last Carriage Buddies.

How strange! I see this man every morning. He doesn’t exist in the evenings! So it’s a nod and a quick “evening” call and I pass him by to take my seat.

But that’s changed the dynamic you see. I have acknowledged him outside of the “morning routine”. The relationship has taken a different direction.

Two days later, as we wait for the late running train after we exchanged the morning call and nod, this man turns to me and says “Do you often catch that late train home in the evening?” He broke the “Commuter Seal” and now he is enquiring of my well being! We are now more than fellow commuters.

Since that breaking of the seal, my morning solitude of waiting (and waiting!) for this train has turned into pleasant dialogues about the weather, the virtues of driving to the city and snow (he is English and considers himself an expert on snow). It’s all very pleasant and we as humans have this need to communicate but you know, I miss the morning solitude.

And on top of all this, the other guy has gone into his shell and I hardly get a nod from him at all these days….

(And for you train spotters who read this, the train was 7 mins on time this morning)

Monday morning plus rain equals late trains. I woke this morning, saw the rain, computed this fact and actually anticipated that the train would be late, so I didn’t rush at all. Pretty sad when late becomes the norm. For the record, it was 8 minutes this morning, but that is still “on time” according to State Rail. Good on ya’s! Keep up the good work!

Monday morning though does mean that I tend to reflect on the weekend just passed. Having taken an annual leave day on Friday, I have had a long weekend compared to the rest of the country and so I have the “post long weekend” blues. The only difference is that I am the only one suffering from them! D’oh!

Friday was our 10th wedding anniversary, a significant milestone. We are going away in 3 weeks time, so we kept the celebrations this weekend a little subdued. We dropped the kids off to school and then went to a café/restaurant called “Mash” for lunch in the GlenbrookVillage. It was a great meal but the quirky menu was full of “organic” food. For example Niki asked for a Diet Coke and the waitress said politely “sorry, we don’t have Coke, but we do have Organic Cola”. WTF is Organic Cola!! Anyways, the lunch was great, and we had some laughs…

Having Friday off though allowed me to go to Kate’s (my oldest) Ballet class. She was selected to go this advanced class on Friday evenings and this was my first experience of “Dancing Mums”. Niki warned me that some of the mums are a bit full on and that some of these girls, who are only four to seven years old, are dancing 7 days a week. To me, I think kids sports are very important and I encourage all my girls to do something. But to send your pre-school child to something 7 days a week is something akin to child abuse. We really debated sending Kate to the Friday class (she goes on Monday’s as well) as we were worried about balancing school with all the other things in a little kids life, and yet here we are watching one mother video taping the teacher (yes the teacher, not her child) so that she can “replay” the lesson to her daughter in the comfort of their own lounge room! Ridiculous!

With dancing however, the culmination of the effort is the half yearly and end of year concerts. The half yearly is this Sunday and we (well Niki and the girls) are in a tizz about hair, makeup, shoes and tights and leotards. Its all good, but I must admit the debate on hair curlers left me a little nonplussed. But the funny thing was that whilst we’re standing in one of these hair product shops at the shops on Saturday, Niki was talking to the saleslady about the concert and getting some advice (we are both “concert virgins” remember) and the lady was very helpful. She asked what dance school the girls went to and nodded approvingly when told. She commented how expensive the classes are (my ears pricked up and now I am nodding) and then she says with a scornful tone “oh and yes, you spend so much money on dance lessons and then after 10 to 15 years they decide that they don’t want to do it any more!” Well isn’t that normal? I am not sending my girls with the “objective” that they grow up to be professional dancers… am I missing something here?

Well the concert is next Sunday and I will be there cheering my girls on (they only do one dance each over a 3 hour event!) and there will be plenty of pictures. One of the other quirky things about these concerts is that video taping is not allowed. I got to say that this is an appalling rule. Every dad in the history of time takes the family video camera to the dance concert so he can not only capture the crucial 4 minutes that their child is on stage (out of the 180 minutes of other kids) but also to give him something to do for the remaining 176 minutes (172 in my case – two kids!). There is light to consider, flash or no flash, checking the battery, getting the good position etc etc. All that good stuff. Instead, I just have to sit and watch! Where’s the justice!!

Of course, to compensate for the lack of videotaping, the dance school has arranged for a “professional” to film the concert and charge us parents another $50 for a DVD of their child in which their 4 minutes has been condensed to 10 seconds, 7 of which they are probably partially obscured…. I will be pushing that the before and after stills will be sufficient for the recording of the event.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

I have been asked why I bother doing a blog... I dont really know myself, I just think its a kinda cool diary to what I am thinking but also a posting place of things I find on the web or in general. There is no one real definitive reason. This article, in that vein looks at the phenomenon of blogging and whilst I am not in Baghdad, it may give you an idea about why people like me do this and also note the fact that I am not a one-man band in the "konk" stakes, as some of my friends may think I am...

Whilst my good friend gumbi has requested that I shut the fark up about trains, it’s a bit hard to do at the moment. This morning, the train is on time and nice and cozy with the heat on…. But last night on the way home it was another story. The train terminated at Penrith and it was a case of a bus between Penrith and Katoomba (all stations!). The old geezer next to me on the train wasn’t happy as he was going all the way to Lithgow. On a cold June evening, a bus to Katoomba stopping at all stations is not what you would call pleasant. Top marks to State Rail for doing Trackwork when people are trying to get home from work.

Today though happy readers, it is the end of my working week. I am taking the day off tomorrow (legitimately! I have put a form in!!) as I will, as of tomorrow, be married 10 years. It’s a bit of a milestone and we are a bit more excited than the usual anniversaries. We are not big present givers normally, but we have gone all out this year. I bought Niki two (yes two!) diamond rings. One a simple eternity band to be worn with her other wedding rings and the another a large diamond number on her right hand. The first was planned; Niki came in and was measured up etc so that was expected. The other was a surprise. Of course I couldn’t resist giving them to her before tomorrow and she has been wearing them this week. She calls them her “Eternity Ring and her Eternity Bling”. LOL.

She also got me a present too and last night gave me a great watch. I don’t normally wear a watch (in the days of mobiles, PC’s, laptops and work telephone, you can see the time pretty much all the time) and haven’t had a working watch for over 5 years. This is a silver and gold metal banded number that is really schmick! Unfortunately it is a little big and needs the links taken out, but I love it! Thanks baby!!

So tomorrow, there will be no State Rail update and I know all of you will be terribly upset about that… but I will be busy doing other things with my 3 hours that I spend on this farking train.

On more worldly matters, I see that Schapelle Corby’s lawyer / financial backer, is now claiming (discretely) to be reimbursed $500,000. Turns out that blundering white knights do come at a cost don’t they! I presume because the story has largely gone off the boil (due to plenty of rumours going around that she is guilty) that Mr Bakir has seen his chance at millions dissipate faster than you can say “media beat up” and now he is realising that he is going to be out of pocket rather than be flush with cash… tsk tsk Mr Bakir…

Instead of Corby, we media (presuming this blog is classified as “media”) types move on to Media Beat Up of the Week with Mr Douglas Wood. Now Dougie Wood (Woodsy to his mates) has been living in the USA for umpteen years and spends his time as some sort of mercenary engineer for US firms in third world nations. Now Woodsy was of course making a killing (excuse the bad pun) in Iraq rebuilding infrastructure in the scam of “US Bombs Destroy Buildings, US Firms Replace Buildings For Big Fee” and gets himself captured by “terrorists”. He gets rescued (but they leave his Iraqi colleagues behind to face certain death) and now he is “home” in Australia. Given that he hasn’t been here for years, I can’t see why he is so keen to get back to Australia. I would have thought his main thoughts would have been with his American born wife in San Diego rather than his crusty brothers in Melbourne, but hey, there’s a dollar to be made.

Channel 10 won the “auction” for his story and now we have the thinking man’s newsreader Sandra Sully interviewing Woodsy this weekend at the same timeslot as Channel 9’s 60 Minutes. I can’t ever recall Channel 9 losing out on the Big Exclusive Interview before… it won’t be the same without Ray!

Perhaps we can get one of the cheap slurry evictees from Big Brother to sit on Dougie’s lap and give him a “Woody” – sorry, bad pun joke.

I bet Channel 10 have an SMS poll about something too, just to make sure that they can recoup some of the high 6, low 7 figure sum they have paid Woodsy and his Band of Brothers.

Well I better signoff… I need to look at the page format of Lime Kettles to make sure these long rants can fit more easily on the page. This skinny column means that when I want to assault you all with my verbal diarrhoea it takes up all the screen… not good.

But before I go, just a quick note to say to our good friends Glenn & Brooke that we’re thinking of them – hope all is well.

For your information, 7 minutes late this morning. It could have been worse… when I got to the train station this morning, the 6:50am was just pulling in 15mins later than it should have been. But hey, what do we care. We’re only going to work etc etc.

I am busy this morning too… have a few papers to read and work to do. So this post is just a short, informative bulletin to keep you abreast of ShityRail.

[post script edit] – I am now at Parramatta after being delayed somewhere near Blacktown. I am estimating we are now some 20mins late!

One of the online players on Fumbbl has a blog started up. DM is another Aussie who is part of the SWL. For the fumbblers who check this site, this blog is pretty good and 100% dedicated to Blood Bowl - online and table top. Worth a look, very slick presentation!

Train is running late this morning… Only 7 minutes, so it’s ok. State Rail will have you believe that this is acceptable and that it’s the best that they can do. What I get annoyed about is that my train doesn’t arrive through multiple lines of track. It comes straight down the mountain from Lithgow to Glenbrook. There are a lot of stations, but surely after 30 years of trains in the mountains, they’d have a good idea of how long it takes to get from Lithgow to Glenbrook… And its not like I am complaining because it is late every once in a while. No, its late every single day! Only 7 minutes today, that’s “acceptable”. Bullshit it is!

Still, could be worse, I could be driving every day and paying ridiculous petrol prices and sitting in traffic.

Which reminds me… I actually got home early enough yesterday to catch the Current Affair story on petrol and the 91, 95 and 98 Octane petrols and as to whether they are cost effective to run. I use regular unleaded myself, because of price. I understand that the higher octane fuels are cleaner and improve performance, but at 10% more of an already expensive bowser, I say bugger that. The story pretty much had the same consensus that the high octanes are better, but at the current prices, they are not cost effective. No shit Sherlock.

Train is very crowded this morning. I guess the later it is, the more people wait on the platform. Some bugger is saying “Geez, I turned up early for my train and caught the late running train before it! Sweet!” State Rail will probably now class this train as running early for that lucky guy.

I should tell you loyal readers that this week will be a short week for me as I am having Friday off. Why? Because I have been married 10 years this Friday and I think that constitutes a “day of rest”. That’s two short weeks in a row and I must say, the work is building up on my desk as a result. But still, 10 years of marriage is a good reason to have the day off J

The couple in front of me are having a fight… Brilliant. She is saying something was in his bag. He is denying it. Shaking of heads. Lots of glares. He’s now laughing it off. She is pissed. He leans in to kiss her on the cheek. She pushes him away. “Come on baby, don’t worry about it”. She ignores him. LOL! I wonder that they are being published on the internet.

I guess if the train wasn’t late, tensions wouldn’t be high… perhaps I can say that State Rail caused a marriage break up? You could sue them for damages. Strange thought. I bet if we were in the USA, this would be a plausible case.

Photos of the paintball did come through yesterday. I tried to publish them via work, but the firewall seems to be blocking the FTP client from working. I use Hello from Picasa to publish photos, but at work it doesn’t seem to work. I don’t know why. I will publish a picture from home soon enough.

On the gaming front, I have to play my next Belltower League game soon. I am not doing too well in that comp despite my 4-0 win last week. Also, I got absolutely canned in fumbbl last night by my good fumbbl mate Twahn in the WWB League. Dice raped is a term us gamers use when the luck of the dice turns south. That is an apt description. The good news though was that dates are being prepared for my next D&D game. We haven’t played for a while because one of the guys (Tommy) had twins (well his wife did) and his parents from the US came over to see them… As a result, D&D has taken a forced hiatus. 1 July is the day being mooted.

Monday, June 20, 2005

This is an interesting article I have seen this morning. Being a "Geek" Dad with two kids, I wonder how to get my kids outside and playing more rather than watching TV. I have had no real issues with this at the moment with both my girls very active playing with the kids in the street and on their trampoline and swing set. However, both can use a mouse with ease and can double-click, click and drag and are quite handy on the few computer games we have for them. They are only 5 (going on six) and 4 years old. I didnt know how to use a mouse until I was 12 or 13 and never had a PC until 17 and we didnt have a game console ever.

Paintball on Saturday was a great day out. I think it is a fantastic sport and is very very demanding. The amount of crawling, crouching and sliding you do plus the physical impact of getting hit alongside all the pumped up adrenaline that makes you feel like John Rambo means that whilst the day itself is fine, you certainly pay for it over the next few days.

I spent Sunday watching sport on TV as I was too sore to do anything else. The lawn remained unmown, the autumn leaves keep swirling and the kids played by themselves as good old Dad watched TV and snoozed. What an athlete! J

Today I am not as sore, but its still there – my shoulder aches from being hit, my legs scream when I walk down the steps and my lower back hurts because I am sitting.

But I am not complaining as it was a fantastic day and great fun. I am very keen to go again and already have my neighbour interested. I will probably let the bruises heal and then will do a call out to friends to get a decent group going. You need about 24-30 people to ensure you are not merged with another group (as we were on Saturday as there were only 11 of us) so I reckon with enough notice, I could get that many together.

There are some photos about as one of the girls from work had a camera, so I will post them up when I get them.

Yes, according to State Rail, if you’re running 4 minutes late, you are still considered to be on time. Wow! Didn’t know State Rail had the capacity to turn back time… Cher must be on the State Rail Board or something. (lame joke).

At least the annoying guard from yesterday isn’t on. The train is pretty quiet this morning except the guy who keeps making mobile phone calls and tells people “I cant talk at the moment, I’m ‘on the train’”. Is it just me, or are all these people stupid. Stupid enough to warrant being lined up collectively against the wall. Aaaggh! He has one of those polyphonic (is that a real word?) ring tones. Because we are going down the mountain at the moment, it keeps cutting out and his persistent caller keeps calling back.

Today is Friday and hence thoughts turn to the weekend ahead. Tomorrow I am going Paintballing at Action Paintball. I have been there once before and it’s a great day. I am going as part of work’s social club and the best part of being in the social club is that these sort of events are FREE! A few of my department colleagues are going to go and in all there’s about 25 people playing. My last visit was to my mate Cam’s Bucks Day and that was fantastic. There will be bruises however, don’t let people kid you that it doesn’t hurt!

The rest of the weekend is pretty quiet.

Also, I note that my blog is looking untidy because all my posts are “different”. This is because depending on how I post, the format is different. Direct posts via Blogger are neat and tidy and have that crisper font. These email posts tend to use a bigger font and have hideous spaces between the paragraphs. I am editing the paragraph spacing in this email and the font size to see if it affects the posting.

I was told this week that I am getting a new laptop because this one has reached “obsolete” status. Works fine for me though, but you never knock back a new laptop. The pain though is that I have customised this one just right. Work has fairly slack administrator rights on its PC’s and laptops and I have been able to add many programs to it. Firefox, Klipfolio, Picasa are the most recent. What annoys me though is that they launched a new Intranet at work this week and the functionality of it doesn’t work on Firefox. In particular, the phone database doesn’t work. I have the “View In IE” extension on Firefox happening, so the Intranet means I now have IE running as well on the desktop. Hasn’t been a problem so far, but has been annoying. I was told discretely that the new Intranet will support all browsers, but that is clearly not the case.

Still on PC’s, my home PC is running crappy at the moment. Lots of lag in opening up applications. I will do the defrag/spyware thing this weekend too. The thing is 4-5 years old and still runs on W98SE so I cant complain too much. May have to start thinking of that upgrade…

Work has been very busy and hence I have done minimal surfing on the web for any weird links. I generally use StumbleUpon for my browsing – its amazing the things it brings up. A plug though for a fumbbl mates blog though. The Chunkspot is there to be looked at if you feel inclined. I do know Chunky’s real name too….

Well better sign off… have some work to do on the train. That guy has stopped prattling on his phone, so all is quiet atm.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Well, my car is in the shop still and I am catching the train again this morning for the first time this week, albeit it is Thursday already. I will get to enjoy the pleasures of peak hour traffic on the way home this afternoon when my car is fixed and I am nearly a grand lighter in the wallet.

I guess this is now a good time to vent a few things…

Firstly, I am yet to comment on Michael Jackson. I am not surprised at all that he was found Not Guilty. “Beyond All Reasonable Doubt” is a very high standard and I guess there was an element of extortion and other elements to it. My view is that he is guilty and that he is a systemic paedophile, but because the mother of the child in question chose to attempt to weed money from him first and THEN go criminal really blew a hole in the prosecutions case. So whilst he goes free, I feel really disgusted mostly by the behaviour of the mother. If my child was in the clutches of a wealthy paedophile, I wouldn’t look for money first, I’d look to put the bastard in jail and then sue him for all he’s got. But it is America, so its not surprising…

State of Origin last night. Great game! Great win by New South Wales. I turned off the tele though immediately after kickoff because I was disgusted by Channel 9’s coverage. Each time a try was scored they went to a commercial break. No replay, no assessment of what went wrong or right… just Ray Warren saying “Try to NSW! And we’ll take a quick break” **cue VB advert**

Well I think that’s a horrid way of telecasting sport. You sit through the build up, the pressure of the game and finally some points and bang, you’re watching an ad for Ray Martin’s A Current Affair. Shitted me big time.

PS - The bloody conductor on this train is the most annoying ever. He is yelling into the microphone and I can hear him every 5 minutes telling us that if we need to get a train to Newtown we should change at Strathfield. Issue is that we’re at Penrith at the moment! If you know the Sydney train network, you’ll know why that’s a dumb piece of information to be giving. Just shut up and get the train back on time!

I posted earlier that Zoe, my dog, had an operation. All is well now and this picture clearly says why we have look after pets when they're sick. Zoe's biggest problem now is growing back the hair they shaved off!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

I believe I have said earlier that this Blog has nothing to do with my work, nor will I generally talk about work in general... Unless something really kooky happens, then this Blog is for personal material (ie non-work).

Well, drove in today again. Had to get the family car in for a quick inspection. The steering column shudders violently when braking at highish speed (ie on the freeway). So off I set.

A massive pile up on the M4 results in me being held up ages and again, because I forgot to pack some CD's was stuck listening to B Team Breakfast radio. mmm, not real flash.

I finally get to my local (local to the office) Ford dealer where I explain the issue and he clearly agrees with my laymans assessment that the discs need remachining. Then comes the clinch "But we will check if there is enough meat on the discs for remachining otherwise we will need to replace the discs. We will call you if thats the case" I am now expecting this call without fail. Why? Because they know I am on a fleet deal and that they think because it will be effectively tax free for me, I won't give a damn about the cost... But you can't risk the issue because the safety of you and your family is at stake... I hate it when tradespeople get you over a barrel.

In other news, I won my Belltower League Blood Bowl match 4-0 last night and escaped unscathed in the process. Slowly climbing up the ladder...

And NSW should win the State of Origin league match tonight to tie the series 1-1. Go the St George contingent!

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Here I am at my desk at a reasonable time, earlier than I normally am, so I am able to pen this little posting… I haven’t been able to vent my diatribe this morning on the train because I was driving in! I rarely do this but I did today because I am going out tonight and I will be doing it again tomorrow because my car needs its breaks repaired… Strange how my brakes are chronically bad, yet I will drive my vehicle 80kms to the Ford Service Centre in the city to get them fixed. There is something in that for all of us…

Traffic this morning was light because I suspect that a lot of people have extended their long weekend. We are never satisfied are we? Get a Monday off for free and most of us compulsively look to take another day off on top. I guess I am just dirty I didn’t think of it first.

I am a bit dirty too because ALL of the breakfast radio DJ crews took this week off as well. The only time I listen to breakfast radio is when I drive, so karma has it that they have all taken this week off when I need to do two drives in this week. Bah! The only exception to this is the lamers on 2Day FM who get 3 mins of talking in between 10 min slabs of adverts on either side… oh well, CD’s for me tomorrow.

Today the view my desk is exceptional and I think if I get the chance I will post a view from my office here on the 17th floor overlooking the harbour… but for now, its back to work!

Sunday, June 12, 2005

I must say, I was very impressed with the new Star Wars movie. I thought the way it put the whole story together was excellent and the creation of Darth Vader was brilliant. The emotions and the way Palpatine twisted Annakin Skywalker to the Dark Side was perfect... it completes the whole picture for me.

Thought the special effects were brilliant as usual and the opening battle scene was excellent. I also enjoyed the ground battle scenes and the way the Storm Troopers defected...

Overall - 5 stars! Plus it was, as per the many reviews I read, was the best of the new movies.

Friday morning! After I was up for various reasons on Wednesday night until 3am I went last night to the Friend in Hand Hotel in Glebe to see Tommy Dean and a cast of misfits for the Mic In Hand Comedy night. I was surprised to find when getting there the host was the very funny Wil Anderson of Triple J Breakfast and the Glasshouse fame…

After dinner at the famous "No Names" restaurant in the downstairs area of the pub, we went up to the "Room" and for a mere $6, entry was granted. It was the Mic In Hand's 2nd birthday and as a result we all got a Lolly Bag! I havent had a Wizz Fizz or a "Redskin" for years.

The place was packed by 7:00 even though the show didnt start until 8:30 and they put the "Sold Out" signs out at around 7:30. Tommy Dean's advice to get there early proved spot on...

With the place packed, we waited whilst sipping on beers and if I wasnt driving, it could have gotten nasty but we sat out the wait.

The gig kicked off with Wil Anderson tearing strips off the couple in the front table and some well placed Shapelle Corby jokes. Then Wil introduced about 5-6 "rookie" comedians to do a 5 minute routine each. They were all OK, nobody really bombed, but I thought the best one was the first guy (sorry, names escape me). And a pointer to comediens of the fairer sex - please stay away from Period Pain and Menstruation jokes... think of something original! But all in all the jokes were good, the room was responsive and it was a great concept.

Then after an intermission (bartender!), Wil introduced Tommy Dean to the stage! Tommy copped a few hecklers, but his routine on what makes Australia a great place to live (yes, it is the most strategic spot in a Risk game) compared to his native Arizona was classic and he mixed in some new material as well...

His show went on for a good decent length (45mins?) and was paced really well... I wont relay his jokes as I cannot tell nor write good jokes, but it was a great show.

Overall, the night ended around 11:30 and the crowd filed out to the bar very satisfied. For $6, to get a lolly bag plus 3 hours of comedy and reasonably priced beer you cant go wrong.

I understand that the Mic In Hand happens every Thursday night and I think I will definately be back.

Glenn, seeing my penchant for nifty software tools (which are free) has referred me to Backpackit.com who describe themselves as a "Personal and small business information manager: Get organized, Get Backpack"

Been in the city today for a meeting which conveniently ended at 3pm. Why is it a) all meetings seem to end at 3pm and b) this is the same time for changeover of taxis. And why do taxis change over at 3pm?? Seems an archaic rule. Why cant they have some sort of flexibility on this system?

I ended up walking back to the office… I finally saw a taxi about 200m from my building. Nice. I also had a lady ask me for directions to the nearest cab rank whilst I was walking looking for said cab. Where does she think she is – Melbourne?? Yee Gods!

I did say last night that I didn’t watch hardly any TV, but last night I decided to spend some quality couch time with Mrs ClayInfinity and ended up spending a few hours in front of the box. I watched BB05 Uncut (oh the shame!) and then watched a great new show called “Last Man Standing”. Absolutely pissed myself laughing. If you’re an Aussie bloke who likes the pub, mates and good times, then catch this show… brilliant. Sort of like “Secret Life of Us” but for blokes!

I did admit to watching the BB Uncut and I have to say for those who saw it, that guy Tim must be gay (not that there is anything wrong with that). There he was, alone with a naked blonde cavorting in the bath for 2 trying to attract his attention and he’s watching TV, listening to head phones and eating cold octopus. What a loser!

Disappointed too, my headphone batteries just died… no music today and I have to listen to the punters on the train cough and splutter…

Monday, June 06, 2005

Here I sit bored shitless as the train crawls somewhere between Blacktown and Penrith.

A blown signal box is the concern and all trains are running on “slow”.

Not wanting to jeopardise safety, but surely something could be done.

In general, this tops a pretty ordinary day. Work was so-so and I couldn’t get into a rhythm. The email banter with my friends was on again today as we talked the weekend football results and the announcement of the NSW State of Origin team. Why they picked Braith Anasta, I will never know. The guy is a personal icon of disgust for me in what a footballer should be. Money hungry, big ego, continually abuses referees and seems to think that he has some ordained right not to be tackled. Next time you watch him play, watch how he will yell at the ref / touch judge whilst he is being held, presumably screaming for a penalty. I prefer to think that he is crying for his mummy! Hehe. I cannot see him stepping up to the plate in the Origin series… he will be overawed and will leave the majority of the playmaking to Trent Barrett, which is exactly what happened in Game 1 with Brett Kimmorley. I agree in the dumping of Kimmorley, but can I ask which selector’s wife that Orford or Gower must have slept with??

At last we are at Penrith. Its 8:05pm. Should be at Glenbrook by now. grrr!

I have to get my passport renewed. Its nearly expired and I believe I may be called up to travel for work again soon. The US will be the destination… projects in our office over there are continuously running late and in general in a poor fashion. Check out my January 2004 archives for my thoughts on the USA.

I find it ironic that I have the time to dribble to this weblog yet have so little time to do other things… 3hrs a day, plus 10 in the office makes for a significant portion of the day. Yet when I do have time to do things, I can do nothing but be a slacker… just like this weekend just past. Did sweet FA.

Sweeet… heading up the mountains now at a good clip… nearly home.

Big Brother Uncut is on tonight… yet to watch much of BB05 at all, but I might check it out to see what the fuss is about. I don’t watch much TV at all. The only show I am watching regularly is LOST and the St George match on the weekend. Everything else passes me by as I prefer to spend time on the PC.

Oh and before I go, the Boys are looking at getting together this weekend coming (which is a long one thanks to our geriatric Queen celebrating another birthday) for a card night. Should be good…

Monday morning and driving to the train station, they had a piece on the news saying that to encourage the use of public transport, that they should allow people to package their transport costs into their salary and hence gain the benefits of the same tax concessions that people with car leases get. I have a car lease and the savings over a year are amazing, but I don’t use my car to drive to work. Instead I use this train as my mode of transport.

Now what makes this story appropriate is that this morning I had to renew my monthly rail ticket. Now don’t get me wrong, the train is more economical than driving to the city, but it’s a bit rude to be forking out $172 at 7am on a Monday morning! Sort of gets the week off to bad start doesn’t it…

$172 a month and I think that is comparatively cheap. I say comparatively because when compared to driving with petrol around $1.16 a litre plus tolls plus parking plus the mystical “wear and tear” the train is by far the cheaper option – even when my car is packaged into my pre-tax salary. But the train is still not “cheap”. It is a very expensive cost for something that NEVER runs on time as I am always anywhere between 10-15mins late each way every day. The train on the way home is invariably full of garbage because they were late getting to Central and hence can’t afford the time for the cleaning. And they are generally drafty and on wet days full of water.

The radio told me that the minister concerned was lobbying his counterpart to allow public transport costs to be packaged up into salaries, but I bet they wont because think of all the GST they will miss out on!

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Up late tonight, just watched my Dragons win tonight against the Warriors 32-18 and after a horror start to the season seem to be back in the hunt. Highlight of the game was Mark Gasniers 50m solo try in the first half... fantastic footwork! :-)

Fumbbl was down tonight for a while so I am playing around with this blogs settings and have worked out how to get my ugly mug on my profile panel to the right... sweet.

Zoe the dog had to go back to the vet today. Seems as though she has irritated the wound where she had her surgury and the thing swelled up dramatically. The Vet see's her and says "mmm, may have to open that up a bit and drain it..." I am thinking "sounds like a plan" and she comes back into the room with a long, thin and sharp instrument a bit like a nail file. She then as a matter of routine bends down and simply sticks it straight in, 3 inches deep into my dogs wound on her neck. She gives it a rotation around, pulls it out and "gush!" - bloody watery fluid spurts out and all on the floor and my shoes... she gives it a squeeze and squirts saline in and washes it out... all very horrific sounding and looking, but Zoe just stands there non-plussed. Weird...She then loads me up on more antibiotics and says come back early next week... Ok I say, and we go home.

Lazy Sunday tomorrow... not much doing, except the I am coaching one of the teams in the SWL Pro Bowl tomorrow night against the mysterious Tommy Dean. 8:30pm in #swl for you fumbblites.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Train on time this morning… which is a rarity. Today being Friday, thoughts turn to the weekend and I am thinking it will be a quiet one – only 1 kids party! I think we are starting to measure our social schedule around the girls. I don’t ever remember having so many parties to attend when I was a kid. The trend seems to be now to have them on the day of the childs birthday… which means Kate and Brooke are now going to birthday parties after school as well. I can’t understand that…

Still am yet to see the new Star Wars movie. Am very keen, but we just haven’t had the time or the babysitting available. I will see what we can do about it this weekend?

Work today will be pretty good too… I have no “meetings” on today and can churn through a few things that are cluttering my desk. “Meetings” are the bane of my existence. They seem to be a constant grind… the office is a pretty unique social microcosm of life. When you think about it, people are thrown together for a “cause” only for the real reason that they need money to exist out side of work. Now this affects people in a number of ways… some people see work simply as that – a chore that is a necessity of life. These people start at 9am and finish at 5pm and have probably been in the same position as they were in 1986. Others see work as there life and hence are motivated by the desire to better the company and hence themselves. These people are usually the ones that call meetings.

Me, I think I am in the rare breed in between. I see work as a necessity but also realise that if you play the game well, the knock on effect is that you get seen by the “Devotees” as a “fellow devotee”. The end result is advancement in the cult called “The Company” and hence more dollars. Win Win situation… What I cant understand is the two other groups of people…

I don’t know why I am dribbling on like this. Perhaps it is the lack of sleep…

Now that ClayInfinity is now back up and running, I guess I need to a) find time to write and b) have something to write about. Part (b) is the hard bit, and I guess one of the main reasons why I stopped posting over a year ago was because of some form of writers bloc (Bloggers Bloc). Maybe my life really was that boring that I too realised the material was shite!

And whilst this issue hasn’t really been resolved – my life still is pretty much the same as it was in January 2004 – I guess now though I have a solution to the first part of my dilemma. That is when to write.

The answer is of course whilst on the train! One of the features of “the new blogger” (and it may not be all that new) is that I can email posts in. This means I can fire up the laptop on the train and type away (as I am now) and when I log into the office – bing – out goes my posting…

So the “when” is sorted.

** pregnant pause **

What should I write about? Well I guess what has happened since January 2004. Not a lot. I still work the daily grind commuting from my home in the Blue Mountains to the city which is a trip of about 90mins each way. I struggle to be occupied for the 3 hours a day I am sitting in my train carriage, so I guess this is the answer to that. Work is extremely busy at the moment. My work year is cyclical and it culminates on 30 June each year and with 4 weeks to go, things are busy. I don’t want to talk too much about what I do, but I basically am responsible for the purchase of insurance for a large multinational property manager and all of those insurances renew on 30 June. Its an expenditure of approximately US$30 million, so I guess my bosses want to make sure it goes off without a hitch! So the short answer at the moment is that work is all about long hours and stress at the moment (/me wonders when it is not?)

At the home front, my oldest daughter Kate has started school and will be 6 in July. She is handling it very well and I believe she is adapting to the daily routine very well. She has made friends, seems popular amongst her class mates and is handling the work load. Work load you may ask? What sort of work does a kindergarten kid have to do? Well its a lot! Daily reader that needs to be signed off by mum or dad, 2 pages of maths work, story writing and writing down 3 different words a week and using them in a sentence. This bundle of work gets delivered religiously on Monday afternoons and has to be signed off and handed in on Friday mornings. That means only 3 evenings to do it all in. It may not sound like a lot, but when you’re 6, it is and it seems to be a lot more than what I used to get “back in the day”.

Brooke, my 4 year old munchkin, goes to pre-school on Thursdays and Fridays. Again, she seems to be going really well. She has matured greatly IMHO in the last 12 months and is developing a really great personality. She went through the “Terrible Twos” and was probably a lot tougher to handle in that stage than her sister, but she seems to be really settling down now. She is not as clingy to her mum as she was and seems to be more keen on yours truly… which is great.

Work, kids… what else is there?

Well apart from this blog, I am doing a lot of things. I am now running the “Southern Wastes League” online Bloodbowl league via the great fumbbl site. That takes up a great deal of time… It is for all Australian and New Zealand players, so if you are interested in playing, by all means sign up! If you don’t want to be a part of a league, that fine too… fumbbl.com is a great place to play a pick up game as well.

I also play the traditional table top blood bowl (with a board and real dice!) in the Belltower Blood Bowl League. Not doing too well atm, but its all good fun.

Another good thing to happen in the past few months is I have taken up playing Dungeons & Dragons again. We play every 6 weeks or so and it has been great fun. Whilst not everyone’s cup of tea, D&D has been a hobby of mine on and off for about 20 years now. Never tires with me… I reckon it’s a great thing to do. For those that are interested, I am playing a Human Abjurer… and we’re currently at level 5. J

Another thing that has taken over my interests and I guess is another reason behind ClayInfinity’s resurrection is that I have become a bit of a techno geek. All things techie interest me… particularly software tools that make the internet a better experience. Obviously Blogger is one, but I am now a fully converted Mozilla user. I use Firefox at both work and home and Thunderbird at home as an email client. Why? Because IE kept crashing my system and delivering spyware to me and Outlook express became over weight with Spam. Sure the spam doesn’t go, but the filtering is great with Thunderbird.

Another tool, which I hope you may use for yourselves is KlipFolio. This tool is handy and I now keep up to date using RSS feeds of all my favourite sites and Google News. The tool was referred to on one of my fumbbl buddies’ own blog www.gumbi.log and now I take a feed from his site to KlipFolio… perhaps he’ll do the same.

I highly recommend the software Picasa2. The thing is fantastic! We have a huge amount of digital photos at home and this neat package took them all, sorted them and the interface is fantastic. It also interlinks with Blogger as well and I can post pictures from picasa to here with ease… I will give it a test run soon!

Ooh, nearly in the city… be soon time to get off and change trains to the office. This post has been long, and I doubt that I will post such slabs in the future (yes Pete, too long!!) but given that it’s the first of my real posts (apart from last nights start up) I think it was warranted.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Can't see anything else but that point of view. I am of the view thatpeople dont get caught up in things if they werent doing somethingsuspect to start with.

Like seriously, do people really get 4kg of marijuana stuffed into theirbaggage at random? Do they really go to a foreign country with thisstuff unawares? I dont think so...

And this issue of "baggage handlers" in Brisbane placing 4kg of drugs'randomly' into a bag so that it can be picked up in Sydney... like comeon! How stupid does that sound?

If a drug dealer wanted to transport marijuana from Brisbane to Sydney,he'd drive it at the required speed limit. They certainly wouldnt putit into a random girls luggage and hope that it will make its intendeddestination.

Whilst I think all the rumour and inuendo about Schapelle and her familyis not true, I certainly think she isnt the clean living model citizenthat the press make her out to be.

She was trying to make cash, she got caught, now she should do the time...